DRIVER HAS LONG HISTORY WITH VOLKSWAGENS
Vintage Volkswagens have a certain charm.
Just ask Carl Browne of Calgary. His first car was a Beetle from the early 1950s, purchased because it was inexpensive and reliable transportation. It was followed by a late 1950s Beetle convertible that Browne drove until the car was more rust than metal.
That’s when, in 1974, a coworker offered him a deal on a 1971 VW Karmann Ghia with only 18,000 miles on the odometer.
“I’m the third owner,” Browne notes. “A lady bought it from Pados Volkswagen, hardly drove it and then sold it to my friend, who didn’t drive it much either, before I got it.”
For the next six years, Browne drove the Karmann Ghia yearround from his home in southwest Calgary downtown to the office.
“In the winter, I’d put a couple of snow tires on the rear, and I’d have the auxiliary gas heater going all the time,” he says. “It was a great winter driver.”
Back in the 1950s, Volkswagen’s Beetle became a bestselling car, but the German automaker didn’t have anything a little more upmarket on the showroom floor. So Italian designer Luigi Segre, from the firm Ghia, began work on a prototype with a little more style that was based on the Beetle’s running gear. German fabricator Karmann was enlisted to construct the car and the first Volkswagen Karmann Ghia coupe left the factory in 1955, followed in 1957 by the convertible.
With sports-car styling and higher-end interior cues such as a woodgrain dash, the Karmann Ghia shared the Beetle’s flat-four air-cooled power plant until VW discontinued the Ghia in 1974.
Browne’s 1971 Karmann Ghia is equipped with the 1,600cc engine, the largest engine offered during the car’s production run.
In Calgary, Pados Volkswagen was the city’s only VW retailer for years. Franz Pados came to Canada in the late 1940s, and by the early ’50s was selling British and German motorcycles and scooters alongside European automobiles. He eventually opened Pados Volkswagen on Macleod Trail, where he also held the Porsche franchise. In 1974, he opened a BMW auto dealership. Browne’s maintenance book for the Karmann Ghia was last stamped by Pados Volkswagen in October 1974. Pados was sold soon after and became South Centre Volkswagen. The next stamp in Browne’s book is from South Centre Volkswagen in April 1976.
Browne drove the Karmann Ghia until 1980, when he got his first company car. At that point, his little convertible had accumulated 49,000 miles and became a weekend-only driver, averaging about 800 miles a year. When his grandson, Scott Lamacchia, was 14, Browne taught him to drive a standard-shift in the Karmann Ghia.
The car still has its original clutch and suspension components and has not yet required any major mechanical work. He’s kept the car well maintained, routinely taking it to Tony’s Auto Service for oil changes and tuneups. The odometer currently shows just over 83,000 miles.
“But that’s not to say it’s a pampered car that only gets driven in the city,” Browne says. “It’s a really solid car, and we just recently had it on the gravel and dirt Powderface Trail in Kananaskis.”
The car is set to go on another adventure when grandfather and grandson drive it to Radium in mid-September.
Radium Hot Springs is famous for its golf courses and touristfriendly scenery. But it’s also well known for its annual Radium Hot Springs Show and Shine. Hosted by the Columbia Valley Classics car club since 1989, the event, always on the third weekend of September, draws more than 1,000 cars and trucks of all makes and models.
“I’m not in a car club or anything like that. I’ve just got an emotional attachment to the Volkswagen and I’ve never thought about selling it.”